Hindustan Times
Call me if you can
All that talk a couple of posts back about taking so many photos that we’re too busy recording the moment to actually enjoy it, made me think about the other things that have become an essential part of our connected world. We talk on our phones with friends while we’re sitting with friends, check for messages even when we don’t have any, need 24-hour internet access, and the coolest new software is the one that lets you simultaneously update your status on Facebook, Twitter and GTalk.
What happens to these when we go on a trip? Do we take them with us, updating and telling everybody, sharing with them as we travel, the sights we’re seeing. Or do we leave the behind, and disconnect for that short time, from everything else so we can return to it refreshed?
It’s a hard one, even I have to admit.
There are so many people I know who only get a couple of days off from office on the condition that they’ll stay connected and be available for work from wherever they are. What’s the harm in taking your laptop and internet plugin along, if you get to sit in a deck chair by the sea as you do the occasional bit of work?
Is it really that terrible if your phone pings at the dinner table with a new email alert, if the table you’re sitting at is in a restaurant at the top of a hill, and fluffy little clouds are floating in and out of the windows?
In fact, because you now have the wherewithal to stay connected on the move, a lot more people are able to take more days off and go holidaying than they could before. My dad, for example. Because he knows his office travels with him, he takes off on a holiday whenever he likes. Mum loves the fact that she can holiday so much more now, than 20 years ago when dad would never be able to get away from office.
Also, I suppose it’s not such a bad if you want to make the occasional Facebook status update or send out a Tweet to update your circle of friends on all the fun you’ve been up to.
That said, I hate it and avoid it like the plague. I never take my laptop along on a holiday. And while I do keep my phone, I leave it behind when I leave my lodgings for the day. My friends are used to me being unreachable on a holiday, and wait to hear my stories till I’m back. Work knows to leave a text and wait for me to reply. And my parents know that I’ll call them in the night, so they needn’t freak out. But I also know that if the option ever was to stay in office, or go on holiday but on the condition that I stay connected, I’d pick the latter. Of course, the endeavour always is that it never comes to that. After all, this is why I chose not to be in a corporate job, right?
(5 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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Hey I can’t tell you how difficult it has become to live without the phone and the internet. It has become more of an obligation to stay connected these days.
I went on a beach holiday recently, and I can’t tell you how relieved I felt without internet and phone. Luckily, the cell didn’t work there. It felt like an achievement to me that I could spend a couple of days without my cell phone and internet.
Of course these things have huge benefits in life, but a break from all this (once in while) is always good.
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neha Reply:
July 8th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Good for yer!
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Ahhhh, Neha. You’ve opened a pandora’s box now. Cellphone addiction and cellphone manners should be the subject of a separate blog altogether, not just a blog entry (hint, hint: HT editors).
I was disheartened reading all your eulogising of the ‘enabling’ nature of new technology, but was happy to note towards the end that you “hate it and avoid it like the plague”. Touche! While it’s true that new technology is good if it actually ‘frees’ you, is that mostly the case? My personal experience is diametrically opposite. You schedule a holiday to ‘get away from it all’. And then all your companion/s seem to be doing is going around like zombies with the cellphone glued to their ears!
The new tech. may enable some people to “holiday so much more now, than 20 years ago”, does holidaying just mean physically going around places & sites? Isn’t it an added (the main?) benefit that people otherwise too busy to connect with one another, except on a perfunctory basis, should be able to get adequate face time to ‘really’ connect? And how do you get that face time if the face itself is partly obscured by a cellphone almost all the time!
Now, the rant (:-): if this language is not too strong for an HT blog, I’d like to put on record that I am truly sick and tired of the cellphone, which is perhaps the most ubiquitous manifestation of new tech. in general. More to the point, I am tired of the blatant misuse of the cellphone, if I may put it that way. People seem to be hiding behind new tech. in general (email?) and the cellphone in particular seemingly to avoid any personal contact.
In days of yore, anyone would be offended if you deliberately look away while talking to someone, much less start talking to a third person. But these days nobody seems to notice how the cellphone is accorded the pride of place and the highest priority of response even while talking to someone face to face. You may leave the other person looking forlorn but, hey, what the heck, it’s the cellphone after all.
For me, the bottomline is: how much respect does someone accord to you. Enought to give you his/ her undivided attention for at least a few minutes? If not, s/he perhaps deserves the same response and the same level of respect.
For those who may be wondering, I’m no technophobe, even if I’m from Gen-X (though I came out as ‘Gen-Y’ in orientation on a recent online quiz!!). I’ve been using computers at work since close to twenty years, am on FB, Twitter, G-talk, Messenger, Orkut, I blog regularly, have my own websites, and have tried out IE 8, Opera & Chrome (does that qualify?!). But still the lack of cellphone manners, and the lack of respect for the other that it portrays, leaves me frothing in the mouth.
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neha Reply:
July 8th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
[Deb]
Hmph. I was being moderate and trying to keep in mind the other point of view. Can’t believe it’s be held against me!
Left to me, there’d be no internet allowed on holidays, and phone connections for limited hours a day only. One day, when I’m a dictator…
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I think the person who takes the laptop and phone, stays connected all the time looses the worth of their own holiday. Our brain needs to stand still for a while and I think we do ourselves a disservice if we do not cut that cord.
My pet peeve is the phone. I find it just pure bad manners to pick up the phone when you are having dinner with friends or family. Nothing can be that important. Used to be the TV…remember the days when people would come over and the TV would be on in the living room. You would ignore the guests and keep watching.
I cannot but express the anger I feel when that cell phone is on the dinner table, people constantly looking around if their beeped. I understand that is connection to your business world but where does it say that you have to pick up a call while chewing down dinner. I love restaurants which ask you to put your cell phone on silent. Come on people have a meal with your friends in peace.
Ah well…
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neha Reply:
August 1st, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Madhu
I share your peeve about the phone at the dinner table!
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Right from the point where we book our tickets and hotel online to the end point of our return when we select our home network, our travels are becoming increasingly electronic. Strangely ironic..but we only make futile attempts to get away from it all, at the same time,are constantly “updated” and connected from the same world we vow to shut ourselves from…
I, as a frequent single traveller, love to connect with Himalayas. Nothing else. therein you find the only connect one needs….
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Deb Reply:
July 15th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Right, Palak. I used to visit isolated places in Tehri & Kumaon regions (albeit on work). The very silence there first used to get to me (ears ringing). But then you find a kind of solace in being so far away from everything. Good days don’t last…
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THERE IS NO NEED TO GO TO ANY ISOLATED ISLAND TO STAY AWAY FROM YOUR PHONE.WHEN IT’S IN YOUR MIND IT WILL DEFINITELY HUNT YOU AT ITS BEST.I USED TO SPEAK ALL THE DAY IN MY LOVING MOTO RAZER.EVEN WHEN I WAS OUT FOR A HOLIDAY TO JAISALMER I USED TO SERCH FOR NETWORK ALL THE DAY FROM DESERTS TO FORT TO TENT TO CAMELTOP.MY YOUNGER BROTHER USED TO CALL ME PHONOHOLIC.MY MOTHER USED TO TELL ME THAT I HAVE NO RESPECT FOR MONEY,AS I WAS PAYING RS.5000 FOR A MOBILE PHONE BILL.
THEN ONE FINE DAY I ASKED MYSELF A SIMPLE QUESTION ,THAT,IS THERE ANY NEED TO TALK TO MUCH?
I HAVE READ OUT ALL UNWANTED TALKATIVES AROUND ME, AS NOW FOR THAT SAME CONNECTION OF MY MOBILE PHONE I PAY A BILL OF RS.500 ONLY.
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